making Brown Bess cartridges

making Brown Bess cartridges

Anyone have any official specs for Brown Bess cartridges? I'd like to make some when I take my Pedersoli out to the range for the first time next week.

I've casted up a pile of .730 musket balls from a Jeff Tanner mold and have some FFFG and FFG.
I've seen some videos on youtube about rolling a tube with newsprint style paper and a dowel. But none of those vids talk about how to include the ball.

I would suggest you use the FFg for the cartridge and if you dont want to 'tear it with your teeth' to pour a bit
into the priming pan use the FFFg in a separate 'priming horn' or tube.
Ive been in on 'rollin some catridges' but it may not have been the 'official' method.

Step 2
Wraped around a 3/4" dowel with air groves (or a hole down the middle)

Step 3
"Sealed" with a bit of bullet lube

Step 4
Fold the end over and shape against the end of the dowel

Step 5
Fill with powder and top with ball (110gr FFg with .735 Ball)

Step 6
Reinsert the dowel on top of bullet and powder and tie a piece of light gauge string with a simple overhand knot (or...half a reef knot......).

Step 7
Place dowel end against you and gently choke the paper between the ball and powder with the string

Step 8
Twist the paper and dowel together to seal the ball against the choke

Step 9
Trim the ends off the paper and the string and dip lube in your recipe

Step 10
Ready for the fray.......

In action!

Its how I do it. I load with the bullet first and the remainder of the paper uppermost. I've read that with the paper end into the barrel first, it acts
like a sabot to the ball and improves accuracy. I had trouble loading that way so I reversed the process. The original charge was somewhere around 4 (or was
it 6...)Drams with a .69 ball. If I don't lube the bullet end, then I can't load past about 2 or 3 rounds....It tends to make shooting rather dirty
and your hands are covered in grime after a shoot... You have to do what you have to do I guess.....

Ammunition for the British percussion smoothbore muskets was a ball of .685 diameter in a paper cartridge with 125 grains of powder. Loading procedure was to
open the cartridge at the powder end and pour the powder into the bore followed by the whole body of the cartridge, this was rammed down and given two blows of
the rammer to compress the paper that was around and under the ball. The resultant package was thus, in effect, a ball with sabot and was quite accurate to
around 100 yards and could be used up to 200 yards. Reports of its inefficiency can usually be ascribed to the lack of musketry training by the users.

The charge for the flint lock muskets was 165 grains but this included the priming. 40 grains is rather more than the pan will hold so the extra must have made
up for the increased efficiency of the percussion system with reduced vent size.

Although this difference in ball/bore size seems huge, the sabot effect is very efficient and has been tested by myself and David Harding out to 110 yards. In
practice, I found that the musket shot better when the bore was dirty after seven or eight shots. No lubrication is used with this system. Lovell came up with
the 'reduced bore' in .733 for specialist arms such as the RA and Sappers Carbines and the Victoria Carbine and these were loaded with the same musket
cartridge as the lessened windage was reckoned to be more efficient.

Hi Bill.
I am unsure of the paper type i should use to try to make the cartridge for my Bess? Is it cartrige paper, wax paper, news print or some other type? Also you
say no lubrication to be used. I take it that means dont dip the ball end in lube? Sorry if the questions have been asked in the past but i am new to the art
of Black Powder shooting.
Thanks Peter

I used computer 60 gramme listing paper. The ball to bore ratio is so large that lube is not necessary. The sabot effect of the crushed up body of the
cartridge below the ball makes for very steady shooting.